Allow me to introduce the real world to you. This is the nice blue globe we all call earth. On this planet people live.
These people have a tendency to want what others have. There are multiple ways they use to get that. There's capitalism, which is a sort of organized and civilized competition for resources, with rules. The problem is that the mere fact that there is a competition increases the available supply of actual richess unbelievably, and this is a problem because said richess immediately disappears when competition falters. This competition is also not popular, especially not amongst those that lose in it's game.
Now there are other people, loads and loads of people who just can't really compete within the "civilized" framework. They still want what other's have, and they simply take what they want (which obviously stops the competition and generally throws entire countries back into the stone age).
Now supposedly there are actually existing pacifist factions amongst these people. Especially in the best-defended country on earth you find, after a 515.4-yearly-billions worth of guns army you find these supposed pacifists.
There were other pacifist factions, but they were attacked, for it was known by their neighbors that their stuff was just there for the taking. Some basic examples are the Hindus of Pakistan and Bangladesh, or most of the lefty factions that opposed the Shah of Iran in 1972. You see, nearly all pacifists that are not standing behind huge armies... are dead. Their attitude caused their neighbors to attack. Some, like South Koreans, changed their mind during the attack and were rescued. But mostly they were killed.
Now you could say, it's muslim greed and entitlement that destroyed Pakistan's and Bangladesh's Hindus (and many, many others). And you'd be right, obviously. There's always the attacker. But that's stupid and not useful, as there will always be greedy people who have no qualms about using violence. Instead, I find fault with those who refused to act, and let millions be killed. I find that the millions who died in the pakistan secession wars are on the head of the commander of the army that let it's own people get massacred. I blame their deaths on mahatma gandhi. Their deaths are the result by pacifism.
And btw, answer me this : how can anyone who "believes" in evolution claim that pacifism works. In evolution you get to refuse to enter the game, obviously, but there's only one thing that awaits those : death.
Of course, that's a cool sentiment and all. But here's the real tough question :
What do you do if 1 billion people prefer to start killing over reasoned argument ?
In "the west" it took hundreds of years of constant wars before we started responding to reasoned arguments, and even then that effort to make people more amenable to talking seems to have come at least partly from the religion, or at least the religion's values. And we all know that those 1 billion people "have different values" (the paedophile prophet's religion does not instruct people to just practice it themselves, in fact it's quite flexible on that point, but to enforce it on others ("hisbah"), a muslim's duty is not to be a good muslim himself but to force others to be so, especially women). How exactly can anyone who truly follows this religion ever tolerate argument ? Obviously, if anyone of them starts being reasonable, a mob will form and...
So what are you going to do ? Nuke em ? Wait until some miracle, against all odds makes them reasonable ? Restart colonization (that seems just about the best possible course of action actually) ? Isolate them and wait until they destroy eachother (didn't take them very long historically) ?
I don't see how reacting against someone who acts with violence toward you could be considered "racist", and you've totally lost me on "insensitive". In my book it's "self defense".
Just go to a G8 "protest" (warzone tends to be a better term), and see if you can convince these people using calm, reasoned argument. The necessary violence used against these protestors (if they justify that name) is always insensitive, racist, or worse, and there's always a conspiracy behind it. Nevertheless, it just always happens to be the protestors starting the violence.
There are lots of groups, communist, muslim, or dictatorial (and I'm sure there are others) that just don't even try using arguments. Muslims, in "their" countries, just use bullets. So do communists, obviously and so do dictators. But also in "normal" countries, I wouldn't expect much reasoned argument from them, you're not going to get it.
In fact, to be honest, neither on the republican or democrat side in America I see much actual arguments being used to defend proposed policies. For the moment republicans most definitely have the upper hand in arguments, but perhaps that's just because they're opposition at the moment. The defense against republican opposition arguments rarely exceeds the level of "you hate the poor" or "you're racist".
The defense of policies in America has been reduced to the argument "I wanna" (have my fantasy), mostly in both parties.
And the number of groups that simply uses violence from day 1 is growing every day. Given the typical (media and otherwise) reactions to actual argument, I can't blame them.
Your offense, ironically, justifies their actions in their minds. Ignoring them denies them the control over you they crave.
And then they find this little word in the dictionary : "violence". Try ignoring that. Of course, reacting against them is "racist", "insensitive", you know whatever's the liberal's insult-du-jour.
Under which rock were you when the mohamed (you know the paedophile prophet) cartoon's were published ? 80% of the world will not talk freely, but rather use violence directly (keep in mind that mohamedans + chinese + comunists is easily 60% of the population of the earth, and then you still have the many dictatorial states).
The problem is that freedom of speech is too easily turned against itself. Yes those students are basically communists, though God knows why. They do not want any part of communism actually implemented but they will scream the goodness of people trying to implement communism, even if they just pretend. I actually saw a guy defending stoning women in front of his girlfriend just because he wanted to claim Iran's ayatollah's were just good souls trying to implement communism. The girl didn't even have the guts to kick the idiot in the balls, she just moved away quietly.
The lesson is simple : whether fascist, or communist the "socialists" (which is the name and ideology people we call communists and fascists used for themselves) hate free speech. They will use mobs, threats, and outright direct violence, sometimes actually rape to "defend their viewpoints". I would like to say that there is a new threat called islam on campus, but to be honest, it looks the same to me. And yes, socialists fought against fascists, fascists fought communists, communists fought islam, islam('s religious institutions) allied with fascism against the west, and against communism, but this sort of thing is little different from the obvious observation that any 2 dictators hate eachother. Saddam fought the ayatollahs, the ayatollahs fought Saddam. That doesn't make their ideologies fundamentally different (each have -or had- a mostly fascist state : no total government control, but very strict government oversight on commerce, and other things).
And yes fascists and communists are *very much* present on America's campuses, they merely resent being called that. They will never stop advocating massive government interference, but they hate any association with those ideologies. Hell, even "socialist" is considered an insult by them. But the government, you see, MUST interfere.
And Communism is about as far as you can get from the Democratic Party. When was the last time the Dems made any effort to put control of industry in the hands of the people working in the industry?
Google "bailout", ignore the banks, check the car companies. Read. Weep.
Yes, but what does "republican" do in the list ? There is, ironically and unfortunately, nothing that causes quite so many wars as pacifism does. But hey, it doesn't take much to make a democrat, socialist, communist, fascist, warmonger, hatemonger, criminal, deviant, brain-dead happy.
we should consider the entire organism as infected.
No, we shouldn't, not in all cases at least. The last resort to prevent spread of a disease in an infected host, after all, is amputation. Several diseases, mostly wound infections (many of which have no treatment) necessitate this, some of them actually viral.
And yes, even in the very hospitable bloodstream of a human being*, virus particles are destroyed mostly within minutes, even if the imune system does not do anything.
* except, of course, for the immune system
(and sorry about the GP post, I claimed viruses are produced by the mitochondria, that should obviously have been ribosomes)
The point is that viral generations are very quick things indeed. The slowest form of viral reproduction (infection of a new organism) creates a new generation every two hours. All other forms are much faster, so the evolutionary speed of viruses is extremely fast, especially compared to other lifeforms (even though viruses are not uniformly considered to be lifeforms).
There are even theories that the more "low-level" evolution of humans, or even plants is not a part of actual evolution of the species, but that evolution really takes place in lower lifeforms, like cyanobacter for example, and spreads to plants, animals and even humans by viral infection of the reproductive organs. These theories explain why there is a "code-split" in all higher DNA : there are large sections dedicated to making specific, complicated proteins, with zero logic connecting them, and there are large sections that are basically programs that use the "protein section" as a sort of library by jumping into it. An unexplained question is why evolution would separate protein production from production control in so many species. Viral transmission of these production genes would explain it.
So viruses might actually be critical to evolution.
The core text of Christianity - the Bible - says that homosexuals are to be put to death. This is very clear, and has been used by Saints, Bishops, Emperors, and other leaders of the Church to justify putting homosexuals to death throughout the ages.
You don't seem to understand the basis of exegesis. Do tell, what, exactly, is the main difference (in deduction of God's will) between Christianity and Judaism ? Is canon law a direct writing down of whatever is found in the bible ? No, that would be toraic law, practiced by Jews. Christians obviously have as a primary source of law the new testament, and a secondary source of law the old testament (meaning any rule is "filtered" through the new testament)
I also note that you fail to actually quote the verse (and I have better things to do) that instructs this. It would be a simple matter to look up, for example, the catholic exegesis of this verse and see how the large majority of Christians implemented it through the ages.
And, frankly, what does baptism have to do with execution of gays ? I would like to note, however, that emperor Justinian was -a lot- more flexible than the country of e.g. Saudi Arabia, and in general most muslim countries are today. First : he insisted on due process, bringing the random killings of judaic and proto-islamic "justice" systems that existed a lot closer to what we know. Add to that Justinian's enemies provided no such courtesy to byzantines, his enemies almost uniformly persecuted and forcibly converted or killed anyone different from them.
You don't get it. How does a virus reproduce outside of a host ? Simple : infection of another host. Infection takes time. You will find this part of viral reproduction to be a very necessary part of their survival.
So why the time limit ? Well the time between the creation of the virus particle by a mitochondrium and infection of a new host cannot, for nearly all diseases, exceed 2 hours. Virus particles are not very stable things in general. They don't do well at all, exposed to UV light, all sorts of reactive gases,... generally anything you find in the athmosphere.
Great soundbite. But correlation DOES equal causation. One of three causal relations to be exact.
A and B correlate IF AND ONLY IF 1) A causes B 2) B causes A 3) There is a third variable C that causes both A and B
Note that obviously and unfortunately you need infinite data series to be sure.
Because one cannot differentiate between these 3 the soundbite "correlation is not causation" was created. But it is one of those "technically not a lie" you know like if you drive over someone saying it wasn't your car that killed him (it was the impact, you see).
You do realize exactly how fast viral reproduction is, right ? We're talking seconds to minutes inside an infected host. Hours (at best) outside of one.
Since HIV existed in living hosts continuously at the very least since 1954, it is (at the very least) the 14th million generation. Quite a bit could have happened in that amount of generations.
What on Earth makes you think "too early to apologize" has anything to do with "innocent"?
You must be a blind mole with none-too-good hearing. It just seems to me your treatment of innocent people and murderers is... well exactly the same. You refuse to lay a finger in their way, nay you even attack people as "insensitive" who dare criticize those murderers.
And since you treat murderers the same as innocents, I would assume you think of them the same way.
Either that or you're a coward.
Either way, since I can't become innocent of things some of my ancestors might have had something to do with, I guess, to get on your good side I'll have to kill some homosexuals. You wouldn't happen to have any close friends that are homosexuals ?
I'll bring my good friend Mahmood A. and we'll have a nice barbecue, okay ?
Wait, could you tell me again, are you FOR or AGAINST killing homosexuals ? Clearly you seem to advocate that people who institutionalize killing homosexuals deserve to not be subjected to criticism.
If you're against killing homosexuals, don't you think your attitude is a bit... counterproductive ?
Imho, this is merely a power play. A "Let's make the government dance" idiocy, not a genuine moral problem.
Wikipedia: "In Chinese Buddhism, homosexuality was a third level sin punishable in one of the nine hells."
But we don't talk about that kind of Buddhism, do we? Not the nasty sort that has more judgement hellfire than the most violent forms of Christianity. We prefer to pretend that the Buddhism that real people have actually followed for thousands of years is somehow "corrupt" Buddhism. Let's whitewash over that and ignore everything but the touchy-feely wishy-washy 1960s hippy Buddha.
In reality Buddhism pushes slavery-based states and, to put it mildly, criminalizes homosexuality.
And saying Taoism does not condemn homosexuality is like saying the taliban don't, because there is a branch amongst them that does NOT in fact kill homosexuals. There have been several homosexual islamic cults, after all, most well known the sufi "divine love of young boys" (and raping minors is still a widespread practice in islamic parts of asia, including in Afghanistan).
And forgive me for looking up the meaning of Wicca, and finding the religion of the druids. Wicca's a cult, and that's a compliment. It's like the "Jedi" religion. It supposedly exists, but that's about all that can be said about it.
Do you really think a guy like that is even capable of giving a balanced reading ?
What one can deduce from your references is that none has any bearing whatsoever on the core texts of Christianity. You do *not* reference canon law, but focus on decisions of (at the time) political bodies who had a relation to the church.
Your references are incomplete and anecdotal. An obvious question about the last one is : where exactly did Justinian find 70.000 homosexuals in antiquity ? I mean that would be the population of several countries at the time, and those would all have to be homosexual (how did they survive ?)...
To give you an idea what I would consider a part of central church dogma, here are some references for the other religions. Here is a statement attributed to the prophet of islam, supposedly a literal statement from allah : "If you find anyone doing as Lotâ(TM)s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done" (vol. 3, p. 145, no. 4447). (and yes, you would be correct in surmising that the victim of gay rape is put to death too)
A "more or less" equivalent in Christianity would be Jesus stating the same thing. But of course, Jesus stated the diametrically opposite, so I doubt you'll find that.
In the hindu religion you would find a song dictated by Brahma(, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, they're all more or less the same thing) specifying that any sexual transgression is to receive the death penalty.
The equivalent in Christianity would be a line dictated by God, that plainly states to kill any homosexual or otherwise sexual deviant, for example in the 10 commandments (the bible does not contain many sections that are attributed directly to God).
You're right, of course, that some Christians did persecute homosexuals, some Christians did practice slavery. And some Christians become murderers. Some Christians are just plain assholes. The extremely large majority is not. It's sad, and it's indeed not a given that because someone is Christian (s)he will be tolerant. However, it is a very good bet that such is indeed the case.
That pertains to ALL sex out of wedlock, and has historically been used to condemn homosexuals to death (as there is no same-sex marriage). I did say it had to be combined with the marriage rules.
Note also the other part, a "brahmin" gets to rape female slaves* without punishment. Another fun part of the Hindu religion, even though islam has an equivalent rule.
* they're not called slaves, but they are forced to work without reward, so by any reasonable definition they are slaves
Have you even read the title page of his site ? Clicked around a few times ? Take a look at it. No offence, but it has about as much authority as a page on America's constitution on wiki.osamabinladen.shithead...
This guy hates religion, with extreme emphasis on various forms of Christianity, and says so himself. Either point to original sources (they're NOT hard to find when it concerns chrsitianity), or shut up.
Great... another confusing Canon law and Thoraic law. You are correct that, in theory, the punishment for homosexual sex in the old testament, and according to the Jewish religion, one should be stoned for same-sex relations (or any sexual relations outside of marriage).
You could make the same statement about adultery, and could be technically telling the truth. Nevertheless, we all know the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman : he didn't approve those relations, at all, and yet he specifically forbade executing her for it. So why am I saying this ? Doesn't this story apply to women ?
Well, no, it doesn't. You see, homosexual sex (not temptation, not sexual orientation, all those are "free") is only a crime because of the same reason Jews wanted to stone that woman before Jesus : it's illicit sexual relations. Sex outside of wedlock.
And clearly, any 2-year-old and his mother know that Christianity does not condone, at all, capital punishment for illicit sexual relations. Which is not to say it condones them.
I am not aware of these roman laws, I was under the impression most of those were lost, and you do not specify your sources. And yes, many European states, which were Christian, did have laws outlawing homosexuality (they did not, despite what you say, prescribe capital punishment however).
I would also like to note that even the subject of our discussion was not executed, at least not by the state, for homosexuality. He was given the choice : chemically repress any sexual urges*, so as to never act on his sexual orientation OR be removed from society.
* he was first, of course, asked to repress them without chemicals. He failed.
Which is a world of difference, compared to what would happen to him today in Saudi Arabia : if 2 muslim male "witnesses" suspected (no, that's the right word, I do not mean that they actually saw him do anything) him of homosexuality this would happen.
Buddhism : The Dalai Lama is the leader of the Tibetan people and is revered by millions of Buddhists worldwide. At a press conference in 1997-JUN, he commented: "From a Buddhist point of view [lesbian and gay sex]...is generally considered sexual misconduct". Additionally, historically buddhist societies have indeed executed homosexuals, and there are. Yes, today the Dalai Lama urges tolerance and compassion, even though he does keep condemning homosexuality. Historically this support for tolerance by Buddhist leaders has changed at the drop of a hat, to the point were wars were started overnight. Buddhism is what the buddha says, first and foremost, and the buddha is considered to be a live human being. Whether Buddhism tolerates homosexuality is dependant on their current leader, and historically that nearly always meant homosexuals die. Today the Buddhist leader is caught between a rock and a hard place and is in no position to enforce rules like this, chances are he would do something to stop "sexual misconduct" if he could.
Wicca is the religion of the ancient Germanic peoples in Europe. No offence, but do you honestly believe they did not execute homosexuals ? Are you delusional ? They executed people for looking at someone the wrong way, or wearing "strange" clothes (read travel stories of early roman travellers). Yes I suppose that if a Wiccan warchief with a big axe was homosexual then it would have been allowed after a few good fights and a few victims. Otherwise, not quite.
Taoism is what the religion of Imperial Japan was called, and they *did* execute homosexuals. Taoism is also a particularly ill-defined religion, even though Imperial Japan is generally considered part of it.
From wikipedia : "Shamanism comprises a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman, pronounced". You're going to have to do better than that to define a religion...
And if you consider a religion tolerant if any part of it tolerates a specific practice, even historically, then you'll find the taliban tolerate homosexuals. After all, they have a few sufi teachers they (supposedly) follow who not only tolerated, but actually encouraged homosexuality.
Okay, fair enough, Manu Smriti, samgrahana (2.8.359), combined with the rule that same-sex couples cannot marry.
You would be correct that this does not equal punishment by death for homosexuality per se. It would be the same as the old English law : you can be homosexual all you want, as long as you're celibate, but any actual homosexual act results in the death penalty.
And yes, you'd be correct that this law is not part of the Indian penal code. You will find, however that the same applies in muslim states, there is no law, in the majority of muslim states, that homosexuals should get killed. Regardless of the national status of this law, there are regions of India the size of Canada where you really shouldn't try it.
Unless you count a single reference to islam in the law system as a law that prescribes death to homosexuals, which, of course, just about all muslims do.
Or, maybe, we could get over this notion that guilt is hereditary and stop asking people to apologise for things that were done by others often before they were born. If you want someone to apologise to Turing (or, rather, to you about Turing, because he's dead and therefore doesn't care) then why not go after the people who still persecute homosexuals. Better yet, get them to apologise to people who are still alive for things that they've actually done.
You filthy islamophobe !
(note, this is sarcastic, just intended to underscore the hypocrisy of people who demand apologies from those who saw their mistake and fixed it, like for example the English and Americans, and not demand anything from the people, like muslims for example, who still have not seen how despicable their behavior is, and still en-masse attack homosexuals, practice slavery,... the works. The problem is, just about any religion except Christianity has always, for the whole of their history, practiced slavery, execution of homosexuals (note that christianity is the only religion where homosexuality is not punishable by death in it's law*, whereas both sharia** and hindu law*** prescribe stoning), or... and that sort of stuff gets in the way of proclaiming how eeeeeeeeeeevil christianity is)
* the punishment for homosexuality in canon law is a mild form of banishment. You don't have to leave the country, but you can't be seen in normal society. Not abiding by the punishment rules, needless to say, does carry heavier punishment (though still not execution).
** yes technically there are differences about how homosexuals should be executed. 50% of muslim scholars (2 schools) believe in stoning, and the other muslims are split 50-50 between throwing homosexuals of tall buildings and letting walls collapse on top of them
*** again there is no uniform agreement on how homosexuals should be executed, and there is little agreement on who should do it. There is no doubt, however that it should be done (versus sharia, where killing homosexuals is a duty of every individual muslim****)
**** only the western concept of law has the idea of the government-violence monopoly, neither sharia, nor hindu law have such a thing. Hindu law, however does prescribe who are "police" and a "normal" hindu should not try, according to his religion, to execute homosexuals, his duty limited to aiding in their capture. By contrast it is a muslim's "sacred duty" to not only capture, but execute any homosexuals they find, everywhere, anywhere, even in foreign countries for example. Muslim states attempt to execute this demand of islam by letting normal people participate in islamic executions. In Iran, you can literally go and participate in the execution of a woman or a homosexual, which occur on regular basis. Or, these provisions of islam are used to justify mob-executions of homosexuals within western states, and are translated in a duty of muslim to protect gay-killers from any western police force.
You must be new here. Everyone who kills others gets a free pass. This is just a power play, not an actual morality issue.
I mean you can't make up just how bad this is. Take the national health care initiative. Ever notice how many of the officials that are controlling the largest tax increase on Americans ever are just about all convicted tax-dodgers. This does not give these "progressives" pause. Why not ? Because they have enough political power to steal their fantasy from others, not pay it themselves. And they do it, not out of moral necessity, not out of any sort of rational judgement, but because they can. Because they can steal your money and spend it on their fantasies-du-jour, they do it.
But if you were to try something like that in Iran, you'd simply get killed. So there is no moral necessity to intervene, nor to get apologies, nor even to condemn those practices (except pro-forma when politically expedient).
In the end, of course this has one major effect : all large institutions, whether states, religions, or... will either become violent and physically attack, kill and murder any critics (and obviously once they attack critics they attack anyone they consider undesirable), or they will get pestered out of existence, if not outright attacked and killed this way, by creating large "public opinion campaigns" against them (that have a tendency to turn into violent mobs in a heartbeat, you know like the G8 protests traditionally do). Historically, the last few times liberals did this to large institutions, those institutions not only became violent, but they won.
If you want to see how fake power-hungry "progressive", or "liberal" public relations campaigns became violent and caused horrible disasters instead of improving the situation, look no further than Iran in 1972, the anti-shah protests and the rist of the Iranian gay-killing, extortionist muslim state. Then again, since a certain "prophet" did exactly the same as the Iranian state, perhaps one should think of this as exactly the same as what we call "islam".
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Allow me to introduce the real world to you. This is the nice blue globe we all call earth. On this planet people live.
These people have a tendency to want what others have. There are multiple ways they use to get that. There's capitalism, which is a sort of organized and civilized competition for resources, with rules. The problem is that the mere fact that there is a competition increases the available supply of actual richess unbelievably, and this is a problem because said richess immediately disappears when competition falters. This competition is also not popular, especially not amongst those that lose in it's game.
Now there are other people, loads and loads of people who just can't really compete within the "civilized" framework. They still want what other's have, and they simply take what they want (which obviously stops the competition and generally throws entire countries back into the stone age).
Now supposedly there are actually existing pacifist factions amongst these people. Especially in the best-defended country on earth you find, after a 515.4-yearly-billions worth of guns army you find these supposed pacifists.
There were other pacifist factions, but they were attacked, for it was known by their neighbors that their stuff was just there for the taking. Some basic examples are the Hindus of Pakistan and Bangladesh, or most of the lefty factions that opposed the Shah of Iran in 1972. You see, nearly all pacifists that are not standing behind huge armies ... are dead. Their attitude caused their neighbors to attack. Some, like South Koreans, changed their mind during the attack and were rescued. But mostly they were killed.
Now you could say, it's muslim greed and entitlement that destroyed Pakistan's and Bangladesh's Hindus (and many, many others). And you'd be right, obviously. There's always the attacker. But that's stupid and not useful, as there will always be greedy people who have no qualms about using violence. Instead, I find fault with those who refused to act, and let millions be killed. I find that the millions who died in the pakistan secession wars are on the head of the commander of the army that let it's own people get massacred. I blame their deaths on mahatma gandhi. Their deaths are the result by pacifism.
And btw, answer me this : how can anyone who "believes" in evolution claim that pacifism works. In evolution you get to refuse to enter the game, obviously, but there's only one thing that awaits those : death.
Of course, that's a cool sentiment and all. But here's the real tough question :
What do you do if 1 billion people prefer to start killing over reasoned argument ?
In "the west" it took hundreds of years of constant wars before we started responding to reasoned arguments, and even then that effort to make people more amenable to talking seems to have come at least partly from the religion, or at least the religion's values. And we all know that those 1 billion people "have different values" (the paedophile prophet's religion does not instruct people to just practice it themselves, in fact it's quite flexible on that point, but to enforce it on others ("hisbah"), a muslim's duty is not to be a good muslim himself but to force others to be so, especially women). How exactly can anyone who truly follows this religion ever tolerate argument ? Obviously, if anyone of them starts being reasonable, a mob will form and ...
So what are you going to do ? Nuke em ? Wait until some miracle, against all odds makes them reasonable ? Restart colonization (that seems just about the best possible course of action actually) ? Isolate them and wait until they destroy eachother (didn't take them very long historically) ?
Do tell.
I don't see how reacting against someone who acts with violence toward you could be considered "racist", and you've totally lost me on "insensitive". In my book it's "self defense".
Just go to a G8 "protest" (warzone tends to be a better term), and see if you can convince these people using calm, reasoned argument. The necessary violence used against these protestors (if they justify that name) is always insensitive, racist, or worse, and there's always a conspiracy behind it. Nevertheless, it just always happens to be the protestors starting the violence.
There are lots of groups, communist, muslim, or dictatorial (and I'm sure there are others) that just don't even try using arguments. Muslims, in "their" countries, just use bullets. So do communists, obviously and so do dictators. But also in "normal" countries, I wouldn't expect much reasoned argument from them, you're not going to get it.
In fact, to be honest, neither on the republican or democrat side in America I see much actual arguments being used to defend proposed policies. For the moment republicans most definitely have the upper hand in arguments, but perhaps that's just because they're opposition at the moment. The defense against republican opposition arguments rarely exceeds the level of "you hate the poor" or "you're racist".
The defense of policies in America has been reduced to the argument "I wanna" (have my fantasy), mostly in both parties.
And the number of groups that simply uses violence from day 1 is growing every day. Given the typical (media and otherwise) reactions to actual argument, I can't blame them.
Your offense, ironically, justifies their actions in their minds. Ignoring them denies them the control over you they crave.
And then they find this little word in the dictionary : "violence". Try ignoring that. Of course, reacting against them is "racist", "insensitive", you know whatever's the liberal's insult-du-jour.
Under which rock were you when the mohamed (you know the paedophile prophet) cartoon's were published ? 80% of the world will not talk freely, but rather use violence directly (keep in mind that mohamedans + chinese + comunists is easily 60% of the population of the earth, and then you still have the many dictatorial states).
*sigh* in the 1980's.
The problem is that freedom of speech is too easily turned against itself. Yes those students are basically communists, though God knows why. They do not want any part of communism actually implemented but they will scream the goodness of people trying to implement communism, even if they just pretend. I actually saw a guy defending stoning women in front of his girlfriend just because he wanted to claim Iran's ayatollah's were just good souls trying to implement communism. The girl didn't even have the guts to kick the idiot in the balls, she just moved away quietly.
The lesson is simple : whether fascist, or communist the "socialists" (which is the name and ideology people we call communists and fascists used for themselves) hate free speech. They will use mobs, threats, and outright direct violence, sometimes actually rape to "defend their viewpoints". I would like to say that there is a new threat called islam on campus, but to be honest, it looks the same to me. And yes, socialists fought against fascists, fascists fought communists, communists fought islam, islam('s religious institutions) allied with fascism against the west, and against communism, but this sort of thing is little different from the obvious observation that any 2 dictators hate eachother. Saddam fought the ayatollahs, the ayatollahs fought Saddam. That doesn't make their ideologies fundamentally different (each have -or had- a mostly fascist state : no total government control, but very strict government oversight on commerce, and other things).
And yes fascists and communists are *very much* present on America's campuses, they merely resent being called that. They will never stop advocating massive government interference, but they hate any association with those ideologies. Hell, even "socialist" is considered an insult by them. But the government, you see, MUST interfere.
And of course, they're all obamatons.
And Communism is about as far as you can get from the Democratic Party. When was the last time the Dems made any effort to put control of industry in the hands of the people working in the industry?
Google "bailout", ignore the banks, check the car companies. Read. Weep.
Yes, but what does "republican" do in the list ? There is, ironically and unfortunately, nothing that causes quite so many wars as pacifism does. But hey, it doesn't take much to make a democrat, socialist, communist, fascist, warmonger, hatemonger, criminal, deviant, brain-dead happy.
we should consider the entire organism as infected.
No, we shouldn't, not in all cases at least. The last resort to prevent spread of a disease in an infected host, after all, is amputation. Several diseases, mostly wound infections (many of which have no treatment) necessitate this, some of them actually viral.
And yes, even in the very hospitable bloodstream of a human being*, virus particles are destroyed mostly within minutes, even if the imune system does not do anything.
* except, of course, for the immune system
(and sorry about the GP post, I claimed viruses are produced by the mitochondria, that should obviously have been ribosomes)
The point is that viral generations are very quick things indeed. The slowest form of viral reproduction (infection of a new organism) creates a new generation every two hours. All other forms are much faster, so the evolutionary speed of viruses is extremely fast, especially compared to other lifeforms (even though viruses are not uniformly considered to be lifeforms).
There are even theories that the more "low-level" evolution of humans, or even plants is not a part of actual evolution of the species, but that evolution really takes place in lower lifeforms, like cyanobacter for example, and spreads to plants, animals and even humans by viral infection of the reproductive organs. These theories explain why there is a "code-split" in all higher DNA : there are large sections dedicated to making specific, complicated proteins, with zero logic connecting them, and there are large sections that are basically programs that use the "protein section" as a sort of library by jumping into it. An unexplained question is why evolution would separate protein production from production control in so many species. Viral transmission of these production genes would explain it.
So viruses might actually be critical to evolution.
The core text of Christianity - the Bible - says that homosexuals are to be put to death. This is very clear, and has been used by Saints, Bishops, Emperors, and other leaders of the Church to justify putting homosexuals to death throughout the ages.
You don't seem to understand the basis of exegesis. Do tell, what, exactly, is the main difference (in deduction of God's will) between Christianity and Judaism ? Is canon law a direct writing down of whatever is found in the bible ? No, that would be toraic law, practiced by Jews. Christians obviously have as a primary source of law the new testament, and a secondary source of law the old testament (meaning any rule is "filtered" through the new testament)
I also note that you fail to actually quote the verse (and I have better things to do) that instructs this. It would be a simple matter to look up, for example, the catholic exegesis of this verse and see how the large majority of Christians implemented it through the ages.
And, frankly, what does baptism have to do with execution of gays ? I would like to note, however, that emperor Justinian was -a lot- more flexible than the country of e.g. Saudi Arabia, and in general most muslim countries are today. First : he insisted on due process, bringing the random killings of judaic and proto-islamic "justice" systems that existed a lot closer to what we know. Add to that Justinian's enemies provided no such courtesy to byzantines, his enemies almost uniformly persecuted and forcibly converted or killed anyone different from them.
You don't get it. How does a virus reproduce outside of a host ? Simple : infection of another host. Infection takes time. You will find this part of viral reproduction to be a very necessary part of their survival.
So why the time limit ? Well the time between the creation of the virus particle by a mitochondrium and infection of a new host cannot, for nearly all diseases, exceed 2 hours. Virus particles are not very stable things in general. They don't do well at all, exposed to UV light, all sorts of reactive gases, ... generally anything you find in the athmosphere.
Great soundbite. But correlation DOES equal causation. One of three causal relations to be exact.
A and B correlate IF AND ONLY IF
1) A causes B
2) B causes A
3) There is a third variable C that causes both A and B
Note that obviously and unfortunately you need infinite data series to be sure.
Because one cannot differentiate between these 3 the soundbite "correlation is not causation" was created. But it is one of those "technically not a lie" you know like if you drive over someone saying it wasn't your car that killed him (it was the impact, you see).
You do realize exactly how fast viral reproduction is, right ? We're talking seconds to minutes inside an infected host. Hours (at best) outside of one.
Since HIV existed in living hosts continuously at the very least since 1954, it is (at the very least) the 14th million generation. Quite a bit could have happened in that amount of generations.
Yeah, but what causes what ? Does twitter cause brain shutdown, or does brain shutdown cause twittering ... or perhaps it's a combination ?
What on Earth makes you think "too early to apologize" has anything to do with "innocent"?
You must be a blind mole with none-too-good hearing. It just seems to me your treatment of innocent people and murderers is ... well exactly the same. You refuse to lay a finger in their way, nay you even attack people as "insensitive" who dare criticize those murderers.
And since you treat murderers the same as innocents, I would assume you think of them the same way.
Either that or you're a coward.
Either way, since I can't become innocent of things some of my ancestors might have had something to do with, I guess, to get on your good side I'll have to kill some homosexuals. You wouldn't happen to have any close friends that are homosexuals ?
I'll bring my good friend Mahmood A. and we'll have a nice barbecue, okay ?
So you're saying in order to be considered innocent, even excluded from criticism on the matter, "too early to apologize". All England would have to do is to restart killing homosexuals ? Clearly they're on the right path to end criticism of gay treatment.
Wait, could you tell me again, are you FOR or AGAINST killing homosexuals ? Clearly you seem to advocate that people who institutionalize killing homosexuals deserve to not be subjected to criticism.
If you're against killing homosexuals, don't you think your attitude is a bit ... counterproductive ?
Imho, this is merely a power play. A "Let's make the government dance" idiocy, not a genuine moral problem.
*sigh* blatantly stolen from another post
Wikipedia: "In Chinese Buddhism, homosexuality was a third level sin punishable in one of the nine hells."
But we don't talk about that kind of Buddhism, do we? Not the nasty sort that has more judgement hellfire than the most violent forms of Christianity. We prefer to pretend that the Buddhism that real people have actually followed for thousands of years is somehow "corrupt" Buddhism. Let's whitewash over that and ignore everything but the touchy-feely wishy-washy 1960s hippy Buddha.
In reality Buddhism pushes slavery-based states and, to put it mildly, criminalizes homosexuality.
And saying Taoism does not condemn homosexuality is like saying the taliban don't, because there is a branch amongst them that does NOT in fact kill homosexuals. There have been several homosexual islamic cults, after all, most well known the sufi "divine love of young boys" (and raping minors is still a widespread practice in islamic parts of asia, including in Afghanistan).
And forgive me for looking up the meaning of Wicca, and finding the religion of the druids. Wicca's a cult, and that's a compliment. It's like the "Jedi" religion. It supposedly exists, but that's about all that can be said about it.
Do you really think a guy like that is even capable of giving a balanced reading ?
What one can deduce from your references is that none has any bearing whatsoever on the core texts of Christianity. You do *not* reference canon law, but focus on decisions of (at the time) political bodies who had a relation to the church.
Your references are incomplete and anecdotal. An obvious question about the last one is : where exactly did Justinian find 70.000 homosexuals in antiquity ? I mean that would be the population of several countries at the time, and those would all have to be homosexual (how did they survive ?) ...
To give you an idea what I would consider a part of central church dogma, here are some references for the other religions. Here is a statement attributed to the prophet of islam, supposedly a literal statement from allah : "If you find anyone doing as Lotâ(TM)s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done" (vol. 3, p. 145, no. 4447). (and yes, you would be correct in surmising that the victim of gay rape is put to death too)
A "more or less" equivalent in Christianity would be Jesus stating the same thing. But of course, Jesus stated the diametrically opposite, so I doubt you'll find that.
In the hindu religion you would find a song dictated by Brahma(, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, they're all more or less the same thing) specifying that any sexual transgression is to receive the death penalty.
The equivalent in Christianity would be a line dictated by God, that plainly states to kill any homosexual or otherwise sexual deviant, for example in the 10 commandments (the bible does not contain many sections that are attributed directly to God).
You're right, of course, that some Christians did persecute homosexuals, some Christians did practice slavery. And some Christians become murderers. Some Christians are just plain assholes. The extremely large majority is not. It's sad, and it's indeed not a given that because someone is Christian (s)he will be tolerant. However, it is a very good bet that such is indeed the case.
That pertains to ALL sex out of wedlock, and has historically been used to condemn homosexuals to death (as there is no same-sex marriage). I did say it had to be combined with the marriage rules.
Note also the other part, a "brahmin" gets to rape female slaves* without punishment. Another fun part of the Hindu religion, even though islam has an equivalent rule.
* they're not called slaves, but they are forced to work without reward, so by any reasonable definition they are slaves
Have you even read the title page of his site ? Clicked around a few times ? Take a look at it. No offence, but it has about as much authority as a page on America's constitution on wiki.osamabinladen.shithead ...
This guy hates religion, with extreme emphasis on various forms of Christianity, and says so himself. Either point to original sources (they're NOT hard to find when it concerns chrsitianity), or shut up.
Great ... another confusing Canon law and Thoraic law. You are correct that, in theory, the punishment for homosexual sex in the old testament, and according to the Jewish religion, one should be stoned for same-sex relations (or any sexual relations outside of marriage).
You could make the same statement about adultery, and could be technically telling the truth. Nevertheless, we all know the story of Jesus and the adulterous woman : he didn't approve those relations, at all, and yet he specifically forbade executing her for it. So why am I saying this ? Doesn't this story apply to women ?
Well, no, it doesn't. You see, homosexual sex (not temptation, not sexual orientation, all those are "free") is only a crime because of the same reason Jews wanted to stone that woman before Jesus : it's illicit sexual relations. Sex outside of wedlock.
And clearly, any 2-year-old and his mother know that Christianity does not condone, at all, capital punishment for illicit sexual relations. Which is not to say it condones them.
I am not aware of these roman laws, I was under the impression most of those were lost, and you do not specify your sources. And yes, many European states, which were Christian, did have laws outlawing homosexuality (they did not, despite what you say, prescribe capital punishment however).
I would also like to note that even the subject of our discussion was not executed, at least not by the state, for homosexuality. He was given the choice : chemically repress any sexual urges*, so as to never act on his sexual orientation OR be removed from society.
* he was first, of course, asked to repress them without chemicals. He failed.
Which is a world of difference, compared to what would happen to him today in Saudi Arabia : if 2 muslim male "witnesses" suspected (no, that's the right word, I do not mean that they actually saw him do anything) him of homosexuality this would happen.
Buddhism : The Dalai Lama is the leader of the Tibetan people and is revered by millions of Buddhists worldwide. At a press conference in 1997-JUN, he commented: "From a Buddhist point of view [lesbian and gay sex]...is generally considered sexual misconduct". Additionally, historically buddhist societies have indeed executed homosexuals, and there are. Yes, today the Dalai Lama urges tolerance and compassion, even though he does keep condemning homosexuality. Historically this support for tolerance by Buddhist leaders has changed at the drop of a hat, to the point were wars were started overnight. Buddhism is what the buddha says, first and foremost, and the buddha is considered to be a live human being. Whether Buddhism tolerates homosexuality is dependant on their current leader, and historically that nearly always meant homosexuals die. Today the Buddhist leader is caught between a rock and a hard place and is in no position to enforce rules like this, chances are he would do something to stop "sexual misconduct" if he could.
Wicca is the religion of the ancient Germanic peoples in Europe. No offence, but do you honestly believe they did not execute homosexuals ? Are you delusional ? They executed people for looking at someone the wrong way, or wearing "strange" clothes (read travel stories of early roman travellers). Yes I suppose that if a Wiccan warchief with a big axe was homosexual then it would have been allowed after a few good fights and a few victims. Otherwise, not quite.
Taoism is what the religion of Imperial Japan was called, and they *did* execute homosexuals. Taoism is also a particularly ill-defined religion, even though Imperial Japan is generally considered part of it.
From wikipedia : "Shamanism comprises a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman, pronounced". You're going to have to do better than that to define a religion ...
And if you consider a religion tolerant if any part of it tolerates a specific practice, even historically, then you'll find the taliban tolerate homosexuals. After all, they have a few sufi teachers they (supposedly) follow who not only tolerated, but actually encouraged homosexuality.
Okay, fair enough, Manu Smriti, samgrahana (2.8.359), combined with the rule that same-sex couples cannot marry.
You would be correct that this does not equal punishment by death for homosexuality per se. It would be the same as the old English law : you can be homosexual all you want, as long as you're celibate, but any actual homosexual act results in the death penalty.
And yes, you'd be correct that this law is not part of the Indian penal code. You will find, however that the same applies in muslim states, there is no law, in the majority of muslim states, that homosexuals should get killed. Regardless of the national status of this law, there are regions of India the size of Canada where you really shouldn't try it.
Unless you count a single reference to islam in the law system as a law that prescribes death to homosexuals, which, of course, just about all muslims do.
Or, maybe, we could get over this notion that guilt is hereditary and stop asking people to apologise for things that were done by others often before they were born. If you want someone to apologise to Turing (or, rather, to you about Turing, because he's dead and therefore doesn't care) then why not go after the people who still persecute homosexuals. Better yet, get them to apologise to people who are still alive for things that they've actually done.
You filthy islamophobe !
(note, this is sarcastic, just intended to underscore the hypocrisy of people who demand apologies from those who saw their mistake and fixed it, like for example the English and Americans, and not demand anything from the people, like muslims for example, who still have not seen how despicable their behavior is, and still en-masse attack homosexuals, practice slavery, ... the works. The problem is, just about any religion except Christianity has always, for the whole of their history, practiced slavery, execution of homosexuals (note that christianity is the only religion where homosexuality is not punishable by death in it's law*, whereas both sharia** and hindu law*** prescribe stoning), or ... and that sort of stuff gets in the way of proclaiming how eeeeeeeeeeevil christianity is)
* the punishment for homosexuality in canon law is a mild form of banishment. You don't have to leave the country, but you can't be seen in normal society. Not abiding by the punishment rules, needless to say, does carry heavier punishment (though still not execution).
** yes technically there are differences about how homosexuals should be executed. 50% of muslim scholars (2 schools) believe in stoning, and the other muslims are split 50-50 between throwing homosexuals of tall buildings and letting walls collapse on top of them
*** again there is no uniform agreement on how homosexuals should be executed, and there is little agreement on who should do it. There is no doubt, however that it should be done (versus sharia, where killing homosexuals is a duty of every individual muslim****)
**** only the western concept of law has the idea of the government-violence monopoly, neither sharia, nor hindu law have such a thing. Hindu law, however does prescribe who are "police" and a "normal" hindu should not try, according to his religion, to execute homosexuals, his duty limited to aiding in their capture. By contrast it is a muslim's "sacred duty" to not only capture, but execute any homosexuals they find, everywhere, anywhere, even in foreign countries for example. Muslim states attempt to execute this demand of islam by letting normal people participate in islamic executions. In Iran, you can literally go and participate in the execution of a woman or a homosexual, which occur on regular basis. Or, these provisions of islam are used to justify mob-executions of homosexuals within western states, and are translated in a duty of muslim to protect gay-killers from any western police force.
You must be new here. Everyone who kills others gets a free pass. This is just a power play, not an actual morality issue.
I mean you can't make up just how bad this is. Take the national health care initiative. Ever notice how many of the officials that are controlling the largest tax increase on Americans ever are just about all convicted tax-dodgers. This does not give these "progressives" pause. Why not ? Because they have enough political power to steal their fantasy from others, not pay it themselves. And they do it, not out of moral necessity, not out of any sort of rational judgement, but because they can. Because they can steal your money and spend it on their fantasies-du-jour, they do it.
But if you were to try something like that in Iran, you'd simply get killed. So there is no moral necessity to intervene, nor to get apologies, nor even to condemn those practices (except pro-forma when politically expedient).
In the end, of course this has one major effect : ... will either become violent and physically attack, kill and murder any critics (and obviously once they attack critics they attack anyone they consider undesirable), or they will get pestered out of existence, if not outright attacked and killed this way, by creating large "public opinion campaigns" against them (that have a tendency to turn into violent mobs in a heartbeat, you know like the G8 protests traditionally do). Historically, the last few times liberals did this to large institutions, those institutions not only became violent, but they won.
all large institutions, whether states, religions, or
If you want to see how fake power-hungry "progressive", or "liberal" public relations campaigns became violent and caused horrible disasters instead of improving the situation, look no further than Iran in 1972, the anti-shah protests and the rist of the Iranian gay-killing, extortionist muslim state. Then again, since a certain "prophet" did exactly the same as the Iranian state, perhaps one should think of this as exactly the same as what we call "islam".